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Clueless Special

 
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Ruud
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 9:00 pm    Post subject: Clueless Special Reply with quote

Normally, I stay away from the weird and exotic sudokus, so you may find it strange to find a post by me here.

However, I've created a new variety that may appeal to a lot of Sudoku addicts. There is a central Sudoku that you need to solve, but you have no clues to start with. Each of the 3x3 boxes is placed in a separate 9x9 Sudoku that you need to solve. Most of the time, you will only be able to pass on sparse eliminations through the central clueless sudoku. All 9 supporting sudokus are needed to solve the clueless one.

I had a lot of fun creating it. I hope you guys have fun solving it.

The little monster can be found here: www.sudocue.net/clueless.php

Please send some comments back, so I can determine whether of not I should create another one...

Ruud.
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Miles

Joined: 29 Dec 2005
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very interesting Wink
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Ruud
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A brand new Clueless Special can now be found at www.sudocue.net/clueless.php (the first one is still available in case you missed it)

The bar has been raised a little. Try to solve this monster without bifurcation... Twisted Evil

Ruud.
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Ruud
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 26, 2006 8:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As a teaser, I will post a Clueless Special exclusive to this forum. If you need to refer to it, call it #4c.

The mission:

This puzzle has 9 constituent Sudokus. The central 3x3 boxes in each of these 9 Sudokus (colored blue), in the configuration of the constituent puzzles, form a 10th Sudoku, which is completely clueless. None of the constituent puzzles can be solved independently, you need to feed information back and forth using the 10 puzzles to solve the Clueless Special as a whole.

This is the Clueless Special #4c:



In pasteable format:
Code:
000030000040000090001805300003000700800000001005000900007903600060000050000010000
000090000070000060005803700001000600800000007009000300004607900090000080000040000
000010000080000060009804500003000200900000001005000400002309800070000090000040000
000020000050000070001304800002000300600000005005000900003401600040000080000050000
000050000030000010006208700003000500500000008008000200001509800020000060000070000
000040000060000030003805100001000400700000009002000800008702600040000080000010000
000030000070000020009704500001000400400000003007000800008305700040000010000070000
000060000040000070001708600006000300800000002009000500007203900090000010000010000
000090000040000030007402900009000400200000006003000500002307100010000080000020000

I'm really interested in your feedback.

If you need more after this teaser, get more from www.sudocue.net/clueless.php

Enjoy,

Ruud.
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PeteTy

Joined: 10 Jun 2006
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 9:24 am    Post subject: clueless Reply with quote

there are several of those clueless specials that I cant solve without bifuraction...
but i havent done triples quads hidden twins and xwing xy wings in my program yet.

i can get the easy grids pretty well knocked down then paste into Argus SS
to find those 'Advanced things"

as I improve my program .. there are more and more of the grids i paste where argus says 'no hints available' he resorts to bifuracation and sometimes the solution his leads to leads to a dead end chain ... theres got to be a way to only follow the correct chain solvable by the good chains
but i have a feeling the eliminations i make in the blue squares don necessairly reflect the entire grid or all 9 of the component puzzles..
I had a lot of possibilitys removed that shouldnt have been.
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Mauricio

Joined: 22 Mar 2006
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:19 pm    Post subject: Interesting Reply with quote

Hi Ruud

How do you create this clueless puzzle?
I think tou use a backtracking algorithm, right? Perhaps DLX.

How long it takes to create it?

Mauricio
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Ruud
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Mauricio,

Clueless puzzles are created in the following way:

1. Create 30 to 50 standard Sudokus with the givens in a fixed pattern. Some of the cells in the center box also contain a given, so each puzzle has a unique solution.
2. Create a random solution for the "blue" cells.
3. Pick 9 random sudokus from step 1, relabel the digits to match the central solution, clear the givens in the center box and put the puzzles together in the Clueless format.
4. Solve the Clueless puzzle in step 3 using the selected solving techniques (settings depend on the difficulty)
5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until a good puzzle is found.
6. Restart from step 1 (using a different pattern) when no good puzzle is found.

It takes my computer 5-10 minutes to find a decent Clueless using this method.

Ruud
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Mauricio

Joined: 22 Mar 2006
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Ruud, thanks for the answer.

I assume you check for the unicity of the puzzle in step 4 (unless you do not use any uniqueness technique to solve the puzzle).

I have just had an idea for a new kind of sudoku puzzles, something between a clueless special and disjoint groups (it is not a clueless special with disjoint groups). Can you guess what it is?

I'll post it when I modify my sudoku creator to create one (if they do exist).
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Ruud
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 21, 2006 8:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mauricio wrote:
I have just had an idea for a new kind of sudoku puzzles, something between a clueless special and disjoint groups (it is not a clueless special with disjoint groups). Can you guess what it is?

Does it look like this variant?

Ruud
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